RootMetrics, having finished its seventh test in San Jose, has declared three of the top four U.S. carriers as equal in the area. Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile tied in first place, with T-Mo having the highest score by a small margin.

T-Mobile finished with an overall score of 98.5, while Verizon and AT&T were awarded scores of 98.3 and 98.0 respectively. Sprint was a little way behind on 93.7:

For those unaware, RootMetrics uses two key factors to determine its final RootScore: Speed and reliability. To work out those scores it performs multiple tests, indoors and outdoors. In San Jose’s case there were 19,212 tests completed between November 8th and November 13th 2014. You can read more on RootMetrics’ methodology here. Interestingly, all four carriers showed a huge improvement in speed.

T-Mobile’s median download speed went up from 15.1Mbps (tested in May) to 25.3Mbps, while the upload speed average increased from 14.1Mbps to 20.3Mbps. This speed performance lead to T-Mo being the fastest network overall in San Jose, earning itself a score of 93.4 in the Speed Index. The same score achieved by AT&T. In data, call and text performance, T-Mobile placed in joint first with either AT&T or Verizon, or both.

Not that T-Mobile needs RootMetrics to prove that its network is improving, but it’s certainly good to see the recent trend of reports catching up with what T-Mo already knows: It has worked incredibly hard on building out a fast, and more reliable cellular network over the past couple of years. Now independent tests are proving it.

About Cam Bunton

Cam Bunton, Managing Editor. A film school graduate from the University of Cumbria, UK, Cam's past life was in mobile phone retail. His passion for cell phones got him in to that industry, and then in to this one. A family man with three kids, he somehow manages to balance his work duties with family life and a runaway Twitter addiction. Follow him on twitter: @CamBunton

98.5 > 98.3 >98.0 numbers don’t lie. reminds me of kids in school nowadays.. even the stoopid ones get an award. Everybody is first place.

school teacher

I see what you did there.

nutmac

I live in Mountain View and work in San Jose. While T-Mobile’s coverage and speed have improved, I am skeptical of this report as the coverage is still noticeably worse than AT&T and Verizon.

Ashton3002

I wonder do they test indoors? I don’t see how T-mobile is scoring so high yet when In a buildings tmobile drops to 1 or 2 bars of 4G, Edge, or no service. That baffles me a little. But good for them improving their network.

J.J.

The article says indoors and outdoors. That’s Unfortunate if that is true for all your city. What type of phone do you have? If it’s older it could be just old radios. I average about 50 mb down inside my house, high 20’s even in large buildings and we are not a wideband city.

Ashton3002

I experience it in multiple cities not just 1. I live between LA and NY throughout the year as well as travel to Vegas and Oklahoma(home state) quite often and it’s the same for every city. As a real estate agent I travel quite a bit. And I have issues with building coverage about 40%of the time. I also have an AT&T phone. Which doesn’t really have issues as far as coverage goes.

J.J.

Hmm that sucks. I don’t travel all around the country like that so i guess i cant say. Type of phone?

Ashton3002

HTC m8 and then a galaxy note 3.

J.J.

yea those are very capable

Jay Holm

You should be more specific about how big of a building your referring to. I’m inside the house I live in right now, 2nd floor, with full bars.

Ashton3002

Houses. It goes from 4/5 then I can move and I’ll have 2/5 bars. Then I can go inside sams sometimes and I can’t make a call. College buildings.

Ordeith

They say they tested in 22 indoor locations, but don’t break it down on where those might have been. Could have been 22 McDonald’s locations for all we know.

Funny thing with that list is that Sprint isn’t even in the top 2 for Kansas City, where their HQ is located.

JaswinderSinghJammu

I am in San Jose and my work building has really thick concrete walls. It’s just a single story building but as soon you walk in there is almost no signal. T Mobile provided me with a signal booster and the best I get is 1 mbps and hit or miss texting. This is in San Jose off Senter Rd near Costco. Outside coverage is great and most other parts of San Jose, Campbell etc is good coverage. My work has a building downtown San Jose off heading near 87 and the basement there is no signal at all.

and that’s what band 12 700MHz spectrum is for, however T-Mobile can’t put it into use in San Jose yet due to channel 51.

Norm

Sitting at a window seat in a restaurant at First & San Carlos my phone said 4G and the Ookla speed was terrible.

NYCTheBronx

Yeah. When I was like living in Los Angelse. I went to the apartment basement to do the laundry and it would go from LTE to 2G. That was at Wilshire Blvd. I would pass by senter a couple of times but never had a chance to test any speeds. I’ll try testing speeds at sender RD at the new DMV place whenever my sis schedules her driving test.

Rob H.

Now they need to get that network expanded into regions where we are forced to *shudders*Roam on AT&T.

Samuel Marano

Omg it’s terrible sometimes. If I head to upstate NY either north or NW I’m screwed with 2G, At&t or holy shit just G. And then there’s the miles of no service lol.

Ordeith

That’s great for people living in San Jose.
Meanwhile, in the rest of the country… (or even the state)…

Fritz

are doing just fine..

Ordeith

on another network…

Romdude

Best in Honolulu, check sensorly, the other three can’t even come close.

KauaiKine

Not true. I’m from Hawaii and you can only get good coverage certain areas, like downtown Honolulu. The coverage is bad on most neighbor islands and if you are on the north shore of Oahu.

Romdude

See here is the thing, I don’t go to those areas and if I ever do, a prepaid verizon phone will do for the rare times. For my everyday use, beats all the other carriers.

Brad

Perfect in Cleveland.

GinaDee

I actually don’t agree with this one although I agree T-Mo’s network has made great strides.

There are still lots of “no service,” areas in The Greater San Jose area particularly inside buildings. Service is almost nonexistent at the Cisco Campus.

enkay1

They don’t have DAS at Cisco of all places?! What about WiFi Calling? They must have the best network in the world there.

GinaDee

Cisco is a huge partner with AT&T but with T-Mobile, not so much.

Jay J. Blanco

Everyone knows that. Nothing new there working on it. Buy some senior notes that’ll help

inteli7

Working on it and having it are 2 different things

Jay J. Blanco

T-mobile owns 700mhz in San Jose they are waiting for the stupid stations to move off the channel. So they are working on it.

nutmac

Well, then technically, T-Mobile doesn’t own 700 MHz block A in San Jose as the area is covered by KDTV channel 51. And as far as I know, KDTV does not plan on giving up the spectrum anytime soon.

Mr Paul

And the channel 51 conflict is a HUGE damper for 700MHz on many, many important markets for T-Mobile. You don’t hear anyone mentioning that. All good and no bad or reality with T-Sheep.

Bori

I agree

inteli7

Working on it and having it are 2 different things

iteli7

Yea tmoble is fast but lacks the coverage of the other 3

vinnyjr

Suburb of Boston where T-Mobile rules in and out of buildings. Getting over 50mb down and 25 up, that’s inside my house and even faster at night. No Carrier has accomplished what T-Mobile has done in a short time. T-Mobile gets better and better every day, the other Carriers just take your money, I know because I have had them all.

NycTheBronx

And that’s why I love T-Mobile.
50-60mbps download and 15+ mbps upload speeds. Seventh street at the 7Eleven. And Coleman San Jose center mall. San Jose, CA all day!

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